Bossier schools: Our kids can lead prayers at school events

An Indiana schoolteacher is in hot water for sending a letter home asking parents to tell their children not to talk about God, Jesus or the devil in her classroom. Her actions set off a discussion on free speech.
Dwight Adams/IndyStar

The Bossier Parish School Board has responded formally to a national group's complaint about prayers at Benton High School's May graduation, saying students have a right to lead prayers in school settings.

Bossier schools will "comply fully with any requirements imposed on it by the Establishment Clause (of the First Amendment), as interpreted by the controlling court," the board said in its Sept. 29 letter.

But, the board argues, student-led prayer does not violate the Constitution.

The board was responding to Americans United, a national nonprofit, which said in a June 8 letter to district officials that it had received a complaint that the Benton High graduation began and ended with student prayers from the main podium as part of the ceremony.

Americans United cited a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court barred a public high school in New Mexico from holding student-led, student-initiated invocations at football games because they occurred at school-related events.

The organization's letter to Bossier schools officials said public school districts can't take action that "communicates an endorsement of religion."

The Bossier School Board cited different case law in its response — a case from Texas in which the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed students to deliver non-sectarian and non-proselytizing invocations and benedictions at public high school graduation ceremonies.

"The Establishment Clause by no means imposes a prohibition on all religious expression in public schools," the school board's response reads. "Instead, the Establishment Clause only requires that a student(s)' private message, which may be religious in character, be separated from a state-sponsored religious message."

The case in New Mexico likely overrules the one cited by the school board, said Ian Smith, staff attorney for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"I really don't know why (the school board) decided to rest their case on a decision that has likely been overruled," he said. "You don't get to vote to violate someone's constitutional rights."

It's not the only case the prayer-related issue the Bossier school district has had to deal with.

In the fall of 2015, Bossier schools faced complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union over a student group's plan to place "prayer boxes" at Airline High School.

On Oct. 5, six national organizations that support the separation of church and state sent a letter to Bossier Superintendent Scott Smith about a student-led prayer before a football game and the district's stance on national anthem protests.

"It's clearly a problem," Smith said of the district's legal issues.

The Bossier school district is unable to provide further comment because the issue involves possible litigation, said Sonja Bailes, spokeswoman for Bossier Schools.